1/9     T-13 years and counting....
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21810-2002Jan9.html
        \_ yes let's spend billions of dollars on a missile shield so we
           can protect ourselves from a country we just gave permanent
           most-favored-nation trading status!  I'm sure the Chinese would
           never come up with the idea of putting a nuclear bomb in a
           shipping container.  -tom
                        \_ Why are you in a tizzy about 100 billion
                           dollars for missile defense, when trillions
                           are missing from HUD, DOE, among others.  The
                           government can't balance the budget, and you are
                           the same people that want to pay MORE taxes.
                           Completely bizzare! The role of the government
                           is first and foremost national defense.
           \_ Someone is stuck in the 70's thinking small I see.
                \_ dubya.  -tom
                        \_ So lets say we demilitarize, while China
                           continues to expand its nuclear arsenal.
                           Ten year from now - what options would we have?
                           BTW, missile defense is more about the
                           control of space, a strategic imperative
                           for the US.
                           \_ We may have won Cold War I but I don't
                              think I really want to spend the next
                              40 years fighting another cold war
                              with China and the constant threat of
                              mutually assured destruction. After all,
                              as crummy as China's government is, how
                              are they a threat to us? USSR was an
                              expansionist state. China isn't. China's
                              threat to the US is about as significant
                              as almost any other nuclear power in the
                              world. Understand your enemies and the
                              way they think. I think if people did
                              that more often, there would be less wars.
                                \_ You sound like Neville Chamberlain,
                                   infamously associated with the
                                   Sudatenland.  Your'e type exists in
                                   every generation.
                                   \_ Alright, argument by association!
           \_ Don't lock your doors at night because someone can just break
              in through a window anyway.  Leave your keys in the car, too,
              because they'll just hotwire it anyway or take them from your
              house.  Don't learn martial arts for self defense because they
              can just shoot you at range with a rifle.  Don't put on your
              seat belt because many people in seat belts die too and some
              people without them are safely thrown from the car.  You're a
              man of my own heart.  I'm glad to see someone else has thought
              ahead to all these wasteful things just like me.
              \_ Cost of seat belt:  $100.  Locks on doors, and all the other
                 precautions you mention:  cheap.  Missile defense system:
                 horribly expensive.  Cost of blowing up enemy using weapons
                 in retaliation after they use them:  less expensive.  Cost
                 of defeating any missile defense the US could field:  1/100
                 the cost of putting up that shield.
        \_ Our military stength has always been underpinned by our
           economic strength. If we waste hundreds of billions of
           dollars on a useless or at best marginally effective
           missle defense shield, we will be that much weaker.
           Not all wars are won on the battlefield.
                \_ Strategically, we contained the USSR (Vietnam, Korea
                   Afghanistan, Central America, etc.) and forced them
                   to pay for military countermeasures.  This is what we
                   are and should do with China.  This is a precaution -
                   in case China does not democratize.